


Orientation

by smilebackwards



Series: Surveillance [2]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU, Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Protective Batfamily, Tim Drake-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-06
Updated: 2019-10-06
Packaged: 2020-11-26 01:13:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20921720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smilebackwards/pseuds/smilebackwards
Summary: Stay alive,Jason had said, first and foremost.That is literally the bar in this family.It’s a low bar. Tim refuses not to clear it.Or: Tim's new family tries to keep him safe as he adjusts, but things don't quite work out that way.





	Orientation

“Tim,” Bruce says, “I need you to go up to the Watchtower.”

“Why?” Tim asks, trying not to sound upset. Bruce looks tired. He and the rest of the Bats have been chasing the Joker around ever-escalating crime scenes for weeks.

“We need better imagery of the Narrows than the computer here is capable of providing.”

It’s not a lie. Bruce doesn’t lie to them. And Tim has been constantly trying to eke more power out of the Batcomputer, but thermal imaging over twenty miles is a bitch on processing power. And finding dozens of bombs studded randomly around the city without thermal imaging is next to impossible.

Any other time, Tim would have been overjoyed to get to visit the Watchtower. A giant satellite floating in space and populated by more of Tim’s heroes? It ought to be Tim’s birthday present, some kind of reward. Now, it feels like an excuse to keep Tim out of the danger his whole family is heading into. Even Damian has been promoted to patrolling. 

Tim can feel himself bridling against being pushed to a task five hundred miles away, but what he wants is to be _useful._ And if he can’t be useful here, he’ll take elsewhere, pride be damned. 

“I don’t have a uniform yet,” Tim points out. He’s still working on designs for when Bruce finally decides he’s ready to be out on the streets instead of in front of the computer. Tim can’t go up to the Watchtower as a civilian.

“You can use one of my old ones,” Jason says, digging through his locker and tossing Tim a Robin uniform. Damian is officially Robin now that Jason’s become Flamebird but the changeover happened recently enough that no one on the Watchtower will notice. They might notice that Tim is half a foot shorter and forty pounds lighter than Jason, but there’s so many Bat kids Tim doubts anyone will question it if he’s wearing the Robin colors.

Tim runs his hands reverently along the black cape with yellow trim, the red torso and green sleeves. He has hundreds of pictures of Jason in this uniform, Tim’s idol. And it’s a later version with tights. Very important. 

“Thanks,” Tim says, his voice feeling choked. “I won’t do anything you wouldn’t do in it.”

Jason laughs. “You’ll probably represent me better than I would.”

Bruce puts a hand on Tim’s shoulder. “Go get changed and I’ll take you to the Javelin launch site.”

Tim changes in the locker room. The uniform fabric is soft and light. When he fastens the cape around his shoulders, it hardly feels weighted at all. Tim takes a moment to look at himself in the mirror. He looks like Robin; like he could have been Robin. He tightens the gauntlets and comes back out into the main section of the cave.

Jason gives him a thumbs up.

Bruce is looking at him with a complicated emotion on his face, but Tim thinks part of it is pride. He hopes so at least.

“It suits you,” Bruce says, and smiles for the first time in days.

-

Setting the thermal imaging scans on the Watchtower computer only takes a few minutes. Running them is another matter. Tim’s going to be here for hours. He could watch the status bar inch excruciatingly along to completion but that’s an insane waste of time when Tim has access to one of the most powerful computers ever built. 

Although the operating system looks like it’s missed its last patch. Probably because Bruce has been trapped down in Gotham by the Joker and hasn’t had time. Tim can fix that. That would be useful.

He’s got three windows of scrolling code open when the alarms blare and the computer monitors all light up with a red alert symbol. A second later, the primary monitors show a video feed from Metropolis. The clear blue sky is pockmarked with bright portals.

“C’mon, kid. We’re gonna need every warm body we can get on this,” Green Arrow says, catching Tim under the elbow to propel him up out of the computer chair.

“I can’t—” Tim starts, dragging his heels. He’s not even approved for _Gotham,_ let alone League missions.

Green Arrow is looking at him like he’s being ridiculous. Other heroes are pausing to look too now. They’re blocking the way to the hangar. 

There isn’t time to explain, if anyone would even believe him, and Tim is wearing Jason’s uniform. It’s Jason’s reputation on the line. There’s no Justice League newsletter where Tim can post a public service announcement later: _Robin did not suffer a moment of unjustified cowardice, that was just Oracle wearing his uniform._

Also, not the way Tim wants to introduce himself as Oracle.

“Okay,” Tim says. Technically, he is at least a warm body. He taps the key sequence to lock the OS screens he’s been working in and sprints after Green Arrow.

There’s a quick briefing en route, a combined pep talk and battle plan. It mostly boils down to the fact that there are boom tubes opening all over the sky of Metropolis like fireworks with parademons pouring out and they need to find the owner of the Motherbox to close the boom tubes and stop this shit. 

Tim listens with half an ear while his mind races through what he should do. He should probably contact Bruce to let him know what’s going on. But what would be the point? None of the Bats would be able to make it from Gotham to Metropolis in time to make a difference and they’re all busy anyway. Tim contacting them would only be a distraction. 

_Alfred,_ Tim thinks with relief. Alfred could take a message and let Bruce know when he gets back to the Cave. And if Tim’s fight is done before the Bats return, no one will ever have had to worry at all. 

Tim takes out his phone and dials, turning his face toward the windows for as much privacy as he can get from the rest of the League. Green Arrow is still doing the briefing so no one’s paying attention to him anyway.

“Agent A,” Alfred’s crisp voice answers the triple encrypted Bat landline.

“This is Oracle,” Tim says, quickly, his voice low. “I’m getting pulled to Metropolis. There’s a thing and they needed everybody on the Watchtower.”

“Master Timothy,” Alfred says, shocked. “You should not—”

“I can’t talk about it now, sorry,” Tim cuts in. “Just, could you let B know when he’s back please?” 

Green Arrow is glaring at him. This is Tim’s second infraction in under ten minutes. He hangs up. And hanging up on Alfred is a horrific Wayne infraction. Tim is on a roll today. He may as well compound it by turning his phone on mute. Tim can’t afford distractions now either.

The Javelin shakes with turbulence and Tim grips one of the handles molded into the ceiling. On the way up to the Watchtower, he sat in the plush co-pilot seat and stared out the window at the wonders of space: white hot stars and the perfect curvature of the Earth. Now, he’s standing up, gripping a strap like he’s on the subway, and he feels like he’s in a war movie, packed into the belly of a troop carrier.

They break the cloudline and land softly in the middle of a tree lined street. Tim can see civilians running for cover out the windows. The Javelin ramp lowers and all the League members shoot out. Half of them can fly which is just unfair. The others still seem to know exactly where they’re headed. And where everyone’s headed is _up._ The fight is in the sky.

_Fuck,_ Tim thinks, staring up at all the skyscrapers, hundreds of stories of sheer, polished glass. Would it kill the architects in this city to add a few crenellations and ledges? Maybe a gargoyle or two?

Tim doesn’t even have a grapple because Bruce has a draconian rule that no one gets a grappling gun and patrol approval until they’ve hit the grapple target 500 times. Consecutively. Tim missed by a quarter of an inch on his 425th shot and now he’s back at 192. 

Tim takes a deep breath and runs for the nearest building. The lobby is empty, evacuated, and he jabs the elevator call button. Taking the stairs would be slow and he’d probably be too exhausted to be of any use once he reached the roof. He hacks the system, just in case, to take him straight up, no stops.

Tim bursts out onto the rooftop and stares at the sky. There are dozens of concentric circles of bright white light disgorging flying _things_ that look halfway between humanoid robots and dragonflies. Parademons, Tim assumes. He extends out his bo staff, because at least he’d brought _that_ with him to the Watchtower, and smacks one across the face when it dives at him.

Despite his judo experience, Tim has been failing dismally at Bat fight training.

“Don’t sweat it, baby bird,” Dick said, gently, after Tim messed up another attempt at a double flip kick combination. He hooked an arm around Tim’s back and Tim let his head fall forward onto Dick’s shoulder. Tim had gotten more hugs from Dick in the past few months than from anyone in the entirety of his life previously. It was nice.

“What he needs is a weapon,” Jason said bluntly. “C’mere, Tim.”

Tim followed Jason over to a chrome workbench and Jason dropped a black bag onto it with a heavy clang. There was the sound of velcro tearing and the bag unrolled into a single stretch of canvas with various weapons held fast by pockets and straps. “See anything you like?” Jason asked.

Tim stared at all the sharp edges. Swords and daggers and throwing stars. Daggers were out. Those were Damian’s go to. And Tim had seen Damian and Bruce practicing with katanas so it was probably best to avoid those too. Damian was extremely sensitive to anything that could be considered encroaching on his territory. In retrospect, Tim was doubly glad he’d hyphenated to Drake-Wayne instead of just taking the Wayne last name full stop when Bruce adopted him.

There were nunchucks and brass knuckles and tasers further down. Tim considered those more seriously. “What’s this?” Tim asked, poking at a slim black cylinder about a foot long. 

“Bo staff,” Jason said, loosing it from its strap and whipping it sideways in a way that made it telescope out another few feet. “Nice choice. This would be a good one for you. Want to give it a try?”

Tim nodded and closed his hand around the staff. The grip felt solid. Dick was already pulling out his escrima sticks and grinning. 

But training with Damian had probably been the best real life, no-holds-barred training he could have gotten, Tim thinks wryly as he knocks another parademon out of the sky, its clawed hand scraping through the shoulder of Jason’s uniform and leaving trails of blood down Tim’s arm. 

Damian had scoffed at the bo staff and slid a katana from its sheath when it was his turn to spar with Tim. They’d circled and engaged, back and forth, and when Bruce and Dick had gone off to review a case, Damian sliced a neat horizontal line over Tim’s ribs. A little blood during sparring was occasionally unavoidable, but on purpose was against house rules.

Tim had ducked quickly into the medical bay, given himself six stitches, left-handed, and let it go. When Tim still hadn’t said anything about it to anyone by dinner, Damian had given him an odd look. He hadn’t cut Tim during training since.

The parademons have no such restraint. Tim earns a deep cut near his right hip and a blow to the back that sends him reeling. He skids across the rooftop on his knees, skinning them bloody. Jason’s old uniform doesn’t have nearly the padding and armor of the newer ones.

One of the parademons is gripping the corner of Tim’s cape and he can’t get it to release, he can’t— 

Tim feels the weightlessness of empty air as he’s pulled off the rooftop. He tries to get a hold on the parademon, to angle himself back to jump to the rooftop, but he’s falling and there’s nothing to stop him except the street below. The gliders built into the Robin cape aren’t going to save him from this high up.

_You had one job,_ Tim thinks dully through the fear clawing at his throat as the concrete races up to meet him. Or two, the way Jason had presented it, but attendance at Alfred’s Sunday dinners is a privilege, not a job. _Stay alive,_ Jason had said, first and foremost. _That is literally the bar in this family._

It’s a low bar. Tim refuses not to clear it.

“Superboy!” Tim yells, and he’s not even sure where the name comes from—he could have called out for Superman or Wonder Woman or any of a dozen other heroes with flight powers— but he saw Superboy fighting with a parademon over one of the rooftops a few minutes ago and Tim remembers the first time Luthor had him shot, how Superboy flew him to Gotham General. Even though he’d been yelling at Tim about Drake Industries’ kryptonite stockpile thirty seconds before, there hadn’t been even a moment where Tim had felt unsafe in his arms.

Tim is twenty feet from the ground when Superboy swoops underneath him and catches him in a bridal carry. Tim grips him around the neck and presses his panicked breath into Superboy’s solid shoulder. 

“You okay?” Superboy asks. 

“Yeah. Thanks,” Tim says. His teeth are chattering but he doesn’t feel cold. 

Superboy frowns. Tim can feel his arms shift like he’s testing Tim’s weight. “You’re not Robin.”

“No,” Tim says. “I was just borrowing his uniform. I don’t have my own yet. I’m Oracle.”

“Oriole?” Superboy asks.

“Or_acle_,” Tim corrects. “I’m not following the bird motif.” 

Superboy sets him gently back on the rooftop. Tim’s legs feel like water. He locks his knees and looks around. Heroes are winning fights against parademons all over but no one seems to have made any headway against closing the boom tubes. More parademons keep pouring in. They’ll still end up overwhelmed in the end at this rate.

Tim studied as many Bat files as he could once Bruce adopted him, importing terabytes of memory to his brain as fast as possible. The information on Motherboxes was sparse but fascinating. Sentient technology. Tim had wanted badly to see one. 

_Be careful what you wish for,_ he thinks, staring up at the boom tubes. Tim frowns. They aren’t evenly spaced. There’s a dense cluster of portals a few buildings south of the Daily Planet. “Superboy, can you fly me over there?” Tim asks, pointing.

“Sure,” Superboy says, scooping Tim up again.

It’s nice. Tim feels very supported. Too bad Superboy would probably balk if he knew it was Tim Drake he was carrying. Tim didn’t make a very good first impression, what with the kryptonite discussion, getting shot, and passing out on the way to the hospital. Superboy would probably rather never see him again.

Tim taps Superboy on the shoulder and Superboy quietly drops them to the rooftop, half hidden behind a rooftop exit door and forty feet from a man in armor that looks like it’s made of blue-black scales. Tim’s memorized all the League members. This isn’t one of them. In the man’s hand is a box the size of a cell phone, with glowing yellow pathways on the front like the inside of a circuit. The Motherbox.

“Can you make a distraction?” Tim whispers to Superboy. “I need to get the Motherbox from him.”

“Of course,” Superboy says and shoots off toward the villain. 

Blue Genesis Tim decides to call him, in lieu of knowing whatever terrible villain name he’s chosen for himself. Blue for the armor. Genesis for one of his likely planets of origin: New Genesis. It’s more likely he’s from Apokalips considering the parademons and general mayhem but Blue Apokalips doesn’t have quite the same ring and Jason told Tim all Bats need the ability to make a good pun now and then.

Tim darts forward while Superboy has him distracted and does a nerve strike on Blue Genesis’ wrist that Damian taught Tim a few weeks ago. Or demonstrated, to be more accurate. Tim hadn’t been able to type for two days.

Blue Genesis drops the Motherbox and Tim grabs it out of the air. Tim was a little looking forward to trying his hacking skills on it, showing that he can be useful, but there’s a giant yellow button flat on the face of it. _Wow,_ Tim thinks, underwhelmed. He points the Motherbox toward the sky like a remote control and presses the button. 

There’s a sound like a muffled sonic boom and the closest boom tube collapses in on itself. 

Across the rooftop, Blue Genesis lands a punch that sends Superboy careening into the adjacent tower. _Great,_ Tim thinks, _super strength._

“That’s mine, boy,” Blue Genesis growls, rounding on Tim. 

Tim dives away, jabbing the button over and over, as fast as possible. At least his gaming talents are proving useful if nothing else. Boom tubes are collapsing all across the sky.

Blue Genesis grabs Tim’s left wrist. Tim knows the exact cross punch he should throw, Bruce taught it to him, but it would mean dropping the Motherbox, and closing the boom tubes is more important than the way Tim’s guard is open for Blue Genesis to backhand him across the face. 

Tim hits the ground hard. 

Blue Genesis kicks him in the ribs before he can roll away but Tim’s hand is fine. He keeps pressing the button. There are only a few boom tubes left.

Tim can feel the reverberation of the rooftop when Superboy lands and he’s so relieved he barely feels it when Blue Genesis kicks him in the face.

-

Tim wakes up on the firm mattress of a med bay bed back on the Watchtower. He tries to sit up and immediately regrets it.

“Hey, hey, relax,” Superboy says, from where he’s sitting by Tim’s bedside. He hands Tim a glass of water with a straw in it and Tim sucks it down gratefully, even though it hurts to drink.

“Superboy. What happened?” Tim croaks out.

“You can call me Conner,” Superboy says. He has a look on his face like it’s an apology for something.

“Conner,” Tim repeats dumbly. “What happened?”

“You’re in the med bay,” Conner says. “We had to bring you back to the Watchtower for treatment. You have three broken ribs and a concussion.”

What _important_ had happened Tim had meant. “But we won? We closed the boom tubes?” 

“Yeah,” Conner says. “We won. There was a lot of structural damage but no fatalities.”

Tim lets himself relax. 

“It’s Tim, right?” Conner says, tentative.

_Oh shit,_ Tim thinks, suddenly understanding the most likely reason Conner had offered Tim his real name right off the bat, why he’d sounded so apologetic. Tim reaches a hand up to his face. His mask is gone. Great, he hasn’t even properly used his alias and his secret identity is already compromised.

“They had to remove it to to make sure your eyes were okay,” Superboy says. “One of the lenses broke when that asshole kicked you in the face.”

Tim has a moment of panic. He blinks, rapidly, but everything seems okay. There’s no pain or blurry vision. Then he re-registers the original problem. His mask is gone. And Tim Drake isn’t some anonymous Gothamite. Conner’s met him before. He knows _exactly_ who Tim is. 

It’s not a positive association.

“Look,” Tim says, awkwardly, “I really am sorry about the kryptonite. I promise it’s locked down tight and Drake Industries is only using it for clinical trials. The IV solution is extremely diluted. Luthor or anyone would have to steal 7000 liters for an amount that would have any effect on you.” Tim’s done the math.

“I know. It’s okay,” Conner says. He puts a hand on Tim’s wrist. “I’m sorry we got off on the wrong foot. You did good today.”

Tim feels his face warm. _You did good today._

“Your phone’s got a lot of messages,” Conner says, nodding toward it.

Tim’s phone is on the table beside the bed. The screen has a crack near the top right but it looks otherwise functional. Tim’s not sure that’s a good thing. He reaches for it with trepidation.

He has dozens of missed calls, starting as early as a minute after he contacted Alfred. Tim winces. Bruce has called twelve times and left three voicemails Tim doesn’t know if he has the heart to listen to. There are calls from Dick, Jason, Barbara, even Damian.

Cass, who uses her phone exclusively for texting, has sent Tim four messages that hit him right in the heart.

**Cass 4:32 pm**  
Call family?

**Cass 4:39 pm**  
Now please

**Cass 4:42 pm**  
Now

**Cass 4:52 pm**  
please

Tim texts her back immediately.

**Tim 10:08 pm**  
I’m okay. Sorry

Beside him, Conner winces hard enough to catch Tim’s attention. “Your dad is scary as hell, man,” he says when Tim looks at him quizzically.

Tim feels a combined wash of relief and dread that Bruce is apparently here. He wonders what Conner can hear through the door.

“He not—” _my dad,_ Tim almost says, but it’s not quite true. Tim was officially adopted. His last name has Wayne in it now. Tim doesn’t call Bruce ‘Dad’. Bruce never offered it and Tim has been quietly watching his brothers for cues: Dick calls him Bruce, Damian calls him father. Tim’s been following Jason’s lead of mostly not calling Bruce anything. Although, Jason threw in a ‘Dad’ once and the look on Bruce’s face had gone soft and pleased. 

Tim wonders if he’d get the same reaction. 

Tim never really called Jack ‘Dad’. He doesn’t think it would feel like a betrayal. Jack had never been around often enough for Tim to call him much of anything.

“He’s not scary to family,” Tim finishes instead. He closes his eyes and focuses his hearing. He can hear the timbre of Bruce’s voice outside the door, low and dangerous.

“ —not ready,” Bruce is saying. “You don’t _ever_ decide what missions my children do or don’t go on.” 

“How was I supposed to know?” Green Arrow yells back. “Usually your kids can take care of themselves!”

Tim flinches. He’s not wrong. If it had really been Jason, there would have been no problem. Even twelve-year-old Damian would have handled things better than Tim.

Bruce is silent, then he says, through what sounds like clenched teeth and the last threads of his patience, “Get out of my sight, Arrow.” 

Tim fiddles with the edge of his hospital sheet. Usually Bruce’s patience is practically glacial. He must be really upset. Tim can feel his heart kick into nervous overdrive. _Thump thump thump thump._ Conner gives him a worried look.

The door opens and Bruce steps inside. “Tim,” Bruce says, as soon as the door shuts behind him, and then he notices Conner. His back goes rigidly straight. Conner has practically the exact same posture. Tim thinks it should almost be funny but the entire room is an anxiety bomb and he’s at the epicenter.

“It’s okay,” Tim says. “Conner already recognized me. We can trust him.”

And then Bruce is removing his mask. Tim had meant they could trust Conner with _Tim’s_ identity. But it’s probably a moot point by now—_your dad,_ Conner had said—and Bruce is doing the thing where he looks Tim straight in the eye in order to say something important. Tim feels his heart clench as hard as when the street was rushing up to meet him.

“Don’t ever scare us like that again,” Bruce says, sitting down on the side of Tim’s bed.

Tim nods, helplessly, and likely a lie, but Bruce pulls him forward into a hug anyway. Gentle, in deference to Tim’s ribs. He’s probably already memorized Tim’s chart. _It is the way he cares,_ Cass had told Tim, while showing him the cotton bandages Bruce wrapped an inch thick over a cut on her hand.

“Alfred has the traditional chicken soup and ice packs for you at home, but your siblings insisted I bring these for you,” Bruce says, with a rueful kind of humor, and dumps two grapple guns on the foot of Tim’s bed. 

Tim runs his finger down the casing. There are strips of gold tape along the sides which is Tim’s color for gear. He shares it with Cass but her stripes are vertical and Tim’s are horizontal. They’re close enough in height and weight to share a lot of gear anyway. “Does this mean I have official patrol approval?”

Bruce looks pained. “_After_ your ribs heal,” he emphasizes.

Tim smiles. He kicks the bedcovers off his legs and reaches out a hand so Bruce can help pull him up. God, why does _standing_ hurt so much? Bruce looks like he’s about to pick him up like a child so Tim straightens quickly and tries to force the pain off his face.

Connor steps around the side of the bed and slides an arm under Tim’s shoulder for support. That Tim can accept.

“Wait, is the thermal imaging done?” Tim asks as they pass the Watchtower computer banks. He came up here to do a job.

“Yes, Tim,” Bruce says, patiently. “You did a good job. We cleared the last two bombs from the Narrows and Joker’s back in Arkham.” He settles Tim into the co-pilot seat on the Javelin and clips Tim’s seatbelt securely across his torso for him.

Tim looks at Conner. “Um, bye. Thanks for your help.”

Conner gives Tim an awkward half-wave and Tim lets his head fall back against the seat, his eyes drift closed.

-

“You gave him the grapples, right?” Dick says looking at Tim with huge, worried eyes. He’d gone in for a hug, but Bruce had gently held him back, citing Tim’s broken ribs.

“I did,” Bruce confirms. 

Jason drums a fist lightly on Tim’s shoulder. “You’re a sweet one, kid. The rest of us just lied about hitting the target 500 times.”

“Didn’t,” Cass defends.

“Okay, maybe Cass didn’t,” Jason allows, “but the rest of us sure as hell did.” 

Dick and Damian look carefully away from Bruce’s judgmental glare.

“I’m sorry I ruined your uniform,” Tim tells Jason. He doesn’t think it’s salvageable. The bright fabric is tattered and torn. The Bat suits have come a long way over the years but Tim’s going to do some durability tests on the Kevlar weave of Damian’s Robin uniform just in case.

“Please,” Jason scoffs. “From what I heard, you gave the Robin cred a serious boost.”

Tim feels something like pride bloom in his chest. “I didn’t want to let you down.”

“I am sure you did fine, Timothy,” Damian says. The most ringing endorsement he’s ever given Tim.

Cass smiles softly and nods. 

Bruce is smiling too, and Tim can barely feel the ache of his ribs beneath the way he feels warm down to his bones.

**Author's Note:**

> This is not the sequel I intended to write but it is the sequel I did write. And it only took about ten weeks instead of ten years so I’m counting it as a win. Now officially a series! Possibility for a part three.
> 
> Thanks for reading! Comments are loved. And/or if you want to talk with me about Tim Drake, I’m also smilebackwards on [tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/smilebackwards) and [Dreamwidth.](https://smilebackwards.dreamwidth.org/)


End file.
